Hey, all,

I have an Eagle Arms / Armalite E-15 carbine that I bought a few years ago. The carbine shoots great straight out of the box -- almost as accurate as my 20" RRA NM upper -- but I'm having problems unloading a loaded round.

It's been this way since I got it. When it was new, I thought maybe there were some burrs or whatever on the bolt lugs, and that they would eventually get rounded off/burnished and the problem would fix itself, but the carbine has a fair number of rounds through it, and the problem persists:

Specifically, after I load the carbine, if I try to then unload it by pulling on the charging handle, it won't budge, and I nearly always have to slam the butt down on something solid while pulling the charging handle.

Can anyone tell me what causes this and how to remedy it? I've built a few AR-15s (at least the lower halves) so I have some skills and common sense, but I've never really messed with assembling or disassembling the upper halves.

Is it (possibly) an issue of the bolt rotating too far clockwise when it closes, so that when I try to pull the CH to unload it, the lugs aren't rotating far enough counterclockwise to clear?

Thanks in advance for any advice. I would prefer to fix it myself if possible, rather than send it back to the mfgr.

XTC

I would send it back if still under warranty.
Watch SOTAG and the number of diagnostic tools he has is very extensive allowing him to check every possible variable.

What does the chamber & inside of the upper receiver look like, also does the locking lug on your BCG look normal?

new ammo

or reloaded or remanufactured ?

Thanks for your replies.

Ammo is both factory ball (Wolf Gold 55gr FMJ) and handloads that work fine in the RRA.

The one-year warranty has expired, though I may call them and see if they'll make an exception, since this is something out-of-spec as far as I can tell.

Everything looks normal...in the beginning, I tried putting a little moly grease on the bolt lugs to see if that would help, then removed it with solvent when it didn't make any difference...

I do have other ARs as well as a spare BCG ... I wonder whether that would make a difference. (Question: Is it generally safe to use a different BCG without checking HS? I don't have HS gages but I'm assuming that if those parts are all in spec, then the HS should also be in spec...)

Thanks again.

XTC

You'll be fine using a different BCG.

Update: Just to be sure I was remembering right, I just now tested it again with the Wolf Gold 55gr FMJ and it "mostly" works right with that ... though it does sometimes give "a little" trouble pulling the CH to extract a loaded round.

Much more troublesome with my short-range target handloads (55gr Hornady SPFB with COL = 2.242") ... supposedly the chamber is 5.56 which I would have expected to have a long enough throat to give plenty of clearance for the 55gr bullet, but maybe not. With the 5.56 chamber, it never even occurred to me that the problem might be with my handloads, but sure enough, it looks like they might be contacting the rifling, causing stiff extraction.

I guess my target handloads for that particular rifle need to have the bullet seated a bit deeper. (The RRA has a Wylde chamber.)

Thanks again for your replies. Now I feel like a dummy for not checking/suspecting "the nut behind the bolt" first.

I had that issue with a 308 AR, and my handloads. The shoulder needed bumped back a touch.

That length should be plenty fine.  What manual are you looking at that makes you think it's too long?

Not going by the manual ... just looking at the loaded rounds after I pull them. Looks like they're hitting the beginning of the rifling, and I'm guessing that's why they're hard to extract.

(Not sure what max COL is for this -- my 1978 Speer manual doesn't seem to list it and I haven't checked my other manuals -- but it appears to be close to max length to fit into my Brownell's magazines.)

I'm FL resizing, so it shouldn't be an issue of the shoulder getting jammed into the chamber, causing pressure between the chamber shoulder and breech face and binding on the bolt lugs when I try to extract the loaded round...

That's the theory at this point, anyway. I'll update the thread for future reference for others if I find out something different. Thanks again.

Check a piece of sized brass in your eagle arms chamber.

First, Disassemble the bolt to remove the extractor and ejector. Then reassemble the bolt and carrier.
Install the carrier to the upper and push the carrier closed with just finger pressure, note how mich force it takes to close the bolt when the chamber is empty.

Next drop the sized case in the chamber and push the bolt carrier forward in the upper with just finger pressure. If the case has been sized correctly the bolt should close with the same or similar force it takes to close the bolt without a case in the chamber.

If the bolt requires more force to close now that the sized case is in the chamber, it is likely this chamber / receiver extension / bolt combination has a tighter headspace than your other rifle. This is telling you to bump the shoulder back on that sized case a bit more. A little goes a long way.

Now you know that in order to have ammo that works in both rifles you should be using the eagle arms chamber as your sizing gauge when setting up your dies.

1st, I don't know why you would be reloading without consulting a manual, really bad idea.  I looked in my Sierra manual & for 55gr bullets it gives 2.240 - 2.250 for COL depending on the exact style of bullet.  So the most you'd be over is .002" which shouldn't be enough to cause the problems your seeing unless your sizing die is not adjusted correctly.  I would spec some of your brass & check to see they within tolerances.

Thanks for the replies.

GlockWrench -- When loading match ammo for my RRA upper, I sometimes use a RCBS Precision Mic to set FLR die to just "bump" the shoulder, but in this case, I'm FL resizing with a FL die, setting it to cam-over as instructed, so I'm not sure how to push the shoulder back farther than I already am unless I grind metal off the bottom of the die or the top of the shell holder, and that's not happening. If the chamber is short enough that a FL-resized case doesn't fit, then as far as I know, the chamber and/or bolt is out of SAAMI spec and defective (HS too short) as-delivered.

11C1P -- I never said I was "reloading without a manual." What I said was that I didn't check COL for the 55 gr load. Instead I relied on my reloading notebooks (compiled over more than 40 years of handloading), along with the bullet cannelure, and memory, and by-gosh, by golly. I know which things I need to double-check in the manuals, and which things I don't, and COL for a 55gr load ain't one of them. But thanks for your concern.

Dano523 -- Thanks for listing possible causes. To answer your question, the stiffness is right at the beginning of pulling the CH. From the get-go, it doesn't want to budge, which supports my theory that the bullet is jamming into the leade, resulting in pressure between the breech face and the throat, and consequent binding of the bolt lugs on their aft bearing surfaces... I guess the way to check that theory would be to try seating the bullets a bit deeper and trying again...or trying to chamber and extract some loads with longer bullets, or at least longer head-to-ogive lengths...I have never shot anything except 55gr bullets through that carbine so far. I've got some handloads I made for the RRA with 77gr and 80gr bullets for the 600 line, maybe I could try chambering and extracting those, but I doubt they'd chamber in a million years, since the RRA is Wylde, and since I tend to seat bullets as far out as I can by sheer habit...

Just to square the circle, I just confirmed that the problem with extracting loaded rounds was that the bullets were contacting the throat.

I seated the bullets deeper and the extraction problems disappeared by the time I had reduced COL from 2.242" to 2.200" with the 55gr Hornady SPFB handloads. (This COL corresponds with the cannelure ending up right at the top of the neck, using cases trimmed to 1.750".) Not sure how they can justify calling that a 5.56 chamber and throat ... I'm just glad I won't be trying to shoot 77s or 80s out of it! Maybe they figure everybody is shooting 55s out of it, and lots of folks are doing mag dumps anyway, so "let's give them more meat to erode."

So I'll make a note in my latest notebook that for this particular round, max COL for that particular carbine is gonna be 2.200" ... at least until the throat erodes more. Or I'll just continue using the same COL (since it's my short-range "accuracy load" in my RRA) and learn to live with the annoyance of trying to extract loaded rounds from the E-15.

Thanks again for all the replies. As usual, my own screwup is to blame!

If it isn’t a chrome lined bore you might want a gunsmith to change the throat with a reamer.  

Seating the bullet deeper you may need to adjust your powder charge down.   Then again shooting with the bullet already into the lands is it’s own pressure increasing item so you may be fine just backing off.


But in general, if you alter a reload recipe it is always a safe move to back off the charge and work back up.

Thanks, yeah, I always do that (and this load is pretty tame anyway -- 0..1 gr above the starting load in Speer #14 -- with no pressure signs even though I'm jammed into the throat) but always good advice.

It could only be a few thou the shoulder needs to be bumped. .001 or .002 can make a difference.

No grinding needed, just screw the die in the press a little further. Running the ram up then screwing the die till the die touches the shellholder is your starting point, lower the ram a bit amd screw in the die a bit more and lock it in then try a sized case in your chamber like I described earlier.

I have shot the hornady 55gr spire point bullets a long time ago and from what I remember they needed to be seated deeper than your traditional FMJ because the ogive was further forward than the FMJ.

Thank you sir. In the future I'll have to get a few fired cases and my Precision Mic and see where exactly the shoulder is, but for now I'm calling this one "solved."

Ran into a similar problem with a BCA barrel. Was supposed to be chambered for 5.56, but had absolutely zero freebore. I experienced blown primers using PMC Bronze .223 rounds and could not extract a live round without pulling the bullet from the case and spilling powder into the FCG. The only difference between 5.56 and .223 chambers is the freebore length with 5.56 being about twice that of .223.

After the bad range day, I checked the chamber with my borescope and was surprised in finding the problem.

My solution was to replace the barrel with one of higher quality.

Any 5.56 chamber, should easily chamber and extract any round not exceeding the 2.260" COAL. If it does not, the chamber needs work.

Even so, the bullet should not contact the lands or initial pressures could spike higher than what is considered to be safe.